Sir

Your Editorial 'The great divide' (Nature 450, 135–136; 2007) pointed to a persistent and problematic issue plaguing conservation: the gap between research and practice. You suggest that conservation biologists should spend more time working with local practitioners and get out of their ruts.

It's true that conservation biology is in a rut. So we need rut-inspired solutions.

The ruts are the cultures and institutions that impede engagement by conservation scientists. A descendant of population biology, conservation science inherited cultures and institutions that may have been suitable for other sciences but are not suitable for conservation science. We are blocked on several fronts.

First, conservation science traditionally focused narrowly on biology, largely omitting the social sciences and humanities. Because conservation is fundamentally the management of human behaviour, this omission has impeded effective application of research. Thankfully, efforts are under way to broaden and integrate conservation research.

Second, engaging society in conservation science is still controversial. And until we sort out what constitutes appropriate engagement, it will rightly remain so.

Third, engagement is generally not valued highly as a professional activity.

The Society for Conservation Biology should publicly declare that engagement is a crucial responsibility of academic conservation scientists. Candidates and reviewers for promotion and tenure could cite this to justify their choices. Such a statement could have intangible and knock-on effects for other scientists too.

To promote effective engagement — and escape this rut — we conservation scientists must first engage our own cultures and institutions.